🧲 Adam Kitchen, Founder @ Magnet Monster 🧲 - Klaviyo Elite Partner & Retention Marketing Agency for D2C brands, recently shared something that caught my attention: he wrote, "I've spoken to 20 eCommerce owners already this year about scaling their retention revenue. These are the 3 constant gaps I've uncovered in their strategies".

That framing matters because it is not theory. It is pattern recognition across real stores, real teams, and real constraints. And the three gaps he calls out are the same ones I keep seeing whenever retention stalls: overcomplicated segmentation, overreliance on email, and list growth that quietly slows until the whole machine runs out of fuel.

Below is my take on what 🧲 Adam Kitchen said, why it resonates, and how to apply it if you want retention revenue to scale without your team drowning in complexity.

The retention trap: effort goes up, revenue stays flat

Retention should feel like compounding. You set up strong foundations (capture, welcome, post-purchase, replenishment, winback), you learn what messages work, and you keep improving. But when retention is underperforming, the most common reaction is to add more: more segments, more flows, more conditions, more cleverness.

🧲 Adam Kitchen is pushing back on that instinct. His post is basically a reminder that leverage comes from the right few moves, not endless permutations.

If the strategic input keeps rising but revenue does not, it is usually a systems problem, not a copywriting problem.

Let us unpack his three gaps and expand them into a practical playbook.

1) Trying to be too clever with segmentation

Adam called it out bluntly: the buzz around "Zero-party data" has done more damage than good for many brands because it encouraged teams to build complex strategies that do not pay back.

I agree with the underlying issue: segmentation is not the goal. Revenue is the goal. Segmentation is only valuable when it changes what you send and when you send it in a way that increases conversions, reduces churn, or improves deliverability.

Where segmentation goes wrong

Here is the common failure pattern:

A brand collects preferences (skin type, goals, style, dietary choices).
The team creates many micro-segments and conditional branches in flows.
Campaign planning turns into a spreadsheet nightmare.
Execution slows, testing stops, and performance plateaus.

Meanwhile, the team is paying for this complexity in three ways:

Opportunity cost: fewer campaigns and fewer tests actually shipped.
Data quality: preference data is often incomplete or inconsistent.
Maintenance cost: segments break, conditions conflict, and nobody wants to touch the system.

Adam's "back to basics" segmentation

Adam's solution is refreshingly simple, especially for brands under 8 figures:

90-day engaged (high frequency)
180 days engaged (moderate frequency)
365 days engaged (low frequency)

This works because it aligns messaging with likelihood to purchase. Engagement windows are also easy to maintain and easy to explain across a team.

A practical way to use those three segments

If you implement those engagement tiers, you can make smarter decisions without extra complexity:

90-day engaged: send more often, test new angles, promote newness, use faster urgency.
180 days engaged: send fewer campaigns, focus on bestsellers, proof, and bundles.
365 days engaged: send sparingly, prioritize winback hooks, higher incentives, and story-driven content.

If you want to add one layer beyond this, keep it outcome-based, not persona-based. For example: VIP status (high LTV) and product replenishment timing. Those typically outperform "persona" segmentation because they map to actual buying behavior.

2) Still only relying on email to scale retention revenue

Adam also pointed out a reality that many teams do not want to admit: "Email engagement plummets post 60-days upon subscribing." You can have a great welcome series and still watch response decay as inbox competition increases.

The takeaway is not "email is dead". It is that email is only one surface area. If you want more repeat purchases, you need more touchpoints across the customer journey.

Why additional channels change the math

Email is amazing for storytelling and long-form persuasion, but it is vulnerable to:

inbox clutter
promotions tab filtering
deliverability swings
customer behavior shifts

Adding SMS, WhatsApp, and direct mail gives you redundancy and more opportunities to reach buyers in moments where email is ignored.

Adam's advice was direct: if you are not aggressively collecting SMS/WhatsApp consent and layering on direct mail, you are behind.

What to do first (without boiling the ocean)

Adam suggested three moves:

Collect consent for SMS/WhatsApp from existing pop-ups
Leverage social channels to expedite growth (i.e. IG stories)
Start a winback campaign to churned VIPs through direct mail

Here is how I would operationalize that:

Step 1: Upgrade your existing pop-up instead of adding new ones

Do not build ten new pop-ups. Start with the one that already converts.

Offer email first (lower friction).
Add a second step asking for SMS/WhatsApp.
Explain the value clearly: shipping updates, early access, VIP drops.

Step 2: Use SMS/WhatsApp where it is strongest

SMS is not for newsletters. It is best for:

short windows (drops, restocks)
cart and browse recovery nudges
delivery and delay notifications (trust builders)
simple winback offers

Keep the cadence sane. The goal is incremental purchases, not unsubscribes.

Step 3: Use direct mail for high-value winback

Direct mail is expensive compared to email, which is exactly why it should be reserved for moments with high expected value.
A simple rule: only mail to people who have already proven they buy.

churned VIPs
high AOV customers
subscription cancelers with strong historical LTV

A postcard with a strong hook and a personal-feeling offer can outperform another 10 winback emails that never get opened.

3) Sluggish list growth

Adam's third gap is the one that quietly kills retention systems over time. If list growth slows, everything downstream shrinks: revenue from flows, audience for campaigns, and the pool of future repeat buyers.

He reminded readers that "Quality > quantity" but also warned that relying on onsite pop-ups alone is a recipe for sluggish growth.

Why pop-ups plateau

Pop-ups are great, but they are limited by:

site traffic volume
conversion rate ceilings
returning visitor overlap

If your CAC is rising, list growth needs to come from more places than your homepage.

List growth strategies that compound

Adam's solutions are practical because they reuse audiences you already have and add offline capture:

Ask email subscribers to sub to SMS/WhatsApp once a month
Run incentives through stories on social channels
Leverage offline retail/QR codes to drive growth

Here is how to make each one work:

Monthly cross-channel conversion (email to SMS)

Once a month, run a simple email campaign to your engaged segment:

clear benefit (early access, text-only deal, back-in-stock alerts)
single CTA to opt in
reminder follow-up to non-clickers

This is a low-cost way to turn your email list into a multi-channel asset.

Story-based incentives (because attention already lives there)

Instagram stories are a retention and acquisition bridge. Use them to:

promote a giveaway that requires SMS/WhatsApp opt-in
share a limited-time code that is delivered via text
drive to a simple landing page with one opt-in goal

The key is to keep the offer aligned with your brand. Better to attract fewer buyers than a crowd of discount-only subscribers.

Offline capture with QR codes

If you do retail, pop-ups, events, or inserts in shipments:

place QR codes at checkout and on receipts
include a QR card in every package
tie opt-in to useful perks (warranty, how-to guides, reorder links)

Offline capture is underrated because it converts buyers, not browsers.

Putting it all together: a simple 30-day retention reset

🧲 Adam Kitchen ended with a strong point: if you are not nailing these, you are leaving money on the table. I would translate that into a simple reset plan:

Simplify segments to engagement tiers (90, 180, 365 days).
Add channels by upgrading your existing pop-up to collect SMS/WhatsApp.
Restart list growth with monthly email-to-SMS conversion and at least one non-onsite growth loop (stories, QR, partners).

The goal is not to do more. The goal is to build a retention system that scales without multiplying complexity.

If you do those three things, you give your email program more reach, your campaigns a larger and more responsive audience, and your team a framework that is actually executable.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by 🧲 Adam Kitchen, Founder @ Magnet Monster 🧲 - Klaviyo Elite Partner & Retention Marketing Agency for D2C brands. View the original LinkedIn post →